Tenacious faith in grief and sorrow

The bathroom floor seemed an appropriate place for a meltdown. My sympathetic friend waited for me to gather my thoughts. Though separated by a province, we were connected by phone and heart.

I struggled through tears as I faced medical fears and mothering shortcomings. The immediate issues, though, were not what I was truly wrestling with. I faced the conviction that, despite these emotional circumstances, I was tasked with obedience, not simple adherence to a strict code of conduct but a raw obedience in the inner recesses of my heart. I faced the call to count it all joy. The reminder that love is patient and kind. The call to trust in the Lord with all my heart.

My weak faith and feeble knees were being summoned to either stay in a puddle on the ground or declare “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life” (John 6:68). A lesson learned while walking through the shadowy unknowns that torment the mind, gnawing at our resolve, compounding our sorrow. My soul would have perished if not for Christ’s strength in my weakness.

Child with a Bible on his lap and hand open

This situation occurred over a year ago, but more recently the call to trust in the Unseen One has resurfaced. A few short months ago, it became evident that my mother’s cancer would not be going away without the Lord’s intervention. This time, the lesson on faith wasn’t learned on the bathroom linoleum. My children were the ones reminding me how to grieve with confident sadness. They know they will miss Grandma, but they also absolutely know that heaven is the end object of delight for every believer, and it will be unexplainably good.

The simple faith of a child reminds me that my own faith has a firm resting place on truth. I don’t grieve like those who have no hope. For Job, his entire life lay in shambles, yet the Bible says, “In all this, Job did not sin by charging God with wrongdoing” (Job 1:22). It’s a gentle reminder that, even in my grief, I am still accountable for what I do and speak. I don’t get a pause button on the greatest commandment to love the Lord with all my heart and my neighbour as myself. I mourn the loss and endure hardships, but with the comforting, certain knowledge that my Redeemer lives (Job 19:25).

I grieve, but it’s not possible to be hopeless because this life is but a breath and eternity stands glorious before us. “Set your affection on things above,” Paul writes (Colossians 3:2 KJV). I rejoice that my mother will soon be where my affections already are. And I look forward to that wonderful day when my faith will be sight. “When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory” (Colossians 3:4). For now, I will continue to dust off my tenacious faith that rests on Christ’s character. As we’re encouraged in Hebrews 10:23, “Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful.”

Karla Hein

Karla Hein (Westpointe, Grande Prairie) is the wife of one and mother of two.

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